11 Points and Irregardless

I am a big fan of the 11 Points blog. I don't read it daily; I skim through it every few weeks. I literally stumbled across the 11 Points blog with stumbleupon. From the "About" tab on the 11 Points website, "11points.com is a blog made up entirely of 11-item lists. Because top 10 lists are for cowards."


The first 11 Points blog post I found was the 11 Little-Known Grammatical Errors That Will Shock and Horrify You. Imagine my horror to find two items on the list that I sometimes misuse and that never come across my radar. More importantly, I thought I knew my problem areas that I regularly watch out for when writing and proofreading. I am rather upset with myself right now.


I purposely used "more importantly" in the previous paragraph because I thought "more importantly" was correct until this morning when I found Sam Greenspan's follow-up post, 11 More Little-Know Grammatical Errors That Will Shock and Horrify You. "Most importantly" means "most in an important manner" which is useless, unwieldy, and gross.



Sam Greenspan, the writer of the 11 Points blog, has a serious problem with the Merriam-Webster dictionary (MW). I wanted to argue with him and point out that the times change and that connotations of words change. Then at the bottom of his post, he explained that had such a strong stance against MW because if they just kept adding words, soon words like "irregardless" would be added to the dictionary. He made a good point; I hate the word irregardless. I wonder if "literally" would end up meaning "figuratively speaking."


Of course, I had to investigate further. Merriam-Webster does list irregardless as a word. So I checked the Oxford-English dictionary (OE). Surely, this king of dictionaries wouldn't stoop so low? But there it was, the word irregardless. How could this be? Even the OE betrayed me?


I turned to my beloved Grammar Girl for help. She pointed out the "non-standard" part of the definition in answer to someone else's query about the word irregardless.  While irregardless has become a commonly used word, it is still a double negative. It means "without without regard." Thank you for the reminder, Grammar Girl.  It is important to not just read the definition; I need to pay attention to what the full listing says. That was sloppy.


I have no plans to comment on the 11 Points blog that words will change and grow and morph. My opinion hasn't changed. Instead, I have learned something new. Being a real word and in the dictionary does not mean that it's a correct word which should be used in speaking or writing. Just look at Joe Namath; drunk as a skunk he was able to remember the difference between "could care less" and "couldn't care less!" (see 11 Little-Known Grammatical Errors That Will Shock and Horrify You)